Saturday, October 1, 2011

"Camera Plus Pro, one of our favorite camera apps for iPhone, has been updated to v4 with a new camera engine that's 30x faster, according to developer Global Delight. The update brings with it live photo and video filters, a UI makeover and the resurrection of the jerk-free Smooth Zoom Feature."

This is a pretty good iPhone camera app, and now on sale for $0.99 USD in the iTunes store [affiliate link]. I've used it since it came out, and I find it pretty handy. I've tried several others out but always seem to come back to this one.

Monday, April 25, 2011

"When the iPad 2 launched, it would've been an overstatement to say that there were a few good apps to take advantage of its cameras."

The PhotoShake! app [affiliate link] looks pretty fun, and for you designers out there, the Home Decorator app, both free and pro versions [affiliate link], looks like it is right up your alley. I personally don't see the draw of using this as a camera, still or video, but that is mainly because I haven't had a chance to play around with one. So how about it, are they usable for photos and videos or would you rather stick to the iPhone or your regular camera?

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

"An ingenious zoom lens that fits your iPhone 4.Get up close and personal with this amazing iPhone zoom lens. Simply click it on to your existing iPhone camera and get picture detail you never thought possible."

You would definitely need a tripod for this, or at least I would since under normal conditions I have problems keeping it steady. Amplified and I have a big problem. But this is pretty slick, since all you have to do is attach the universal bracket to your iPhone 4 and take that close up. And yes, it does come with a tripod.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

"Ariel Dunitz-Johnson, a 30-year-old illustrator in San Francisco, bought a point-and-shoot camera in May. But in July, she bought a smartphone, with a camera built in. Soon, whenever she wanted to take a picture, she found herself reaching for the smartphone, a Droid Incredible. She barely uses her point-and-shoot, a Panasonic DMC-LX3."

I tended to do this, but after my last trip to Dallas, I'm moving the other way back towards my point-and-shoot camera. Some of the shots I was taking didn't turn out very well, and once the moment passed, it was pretty hard to get another shot (I was taking pics of some of the football players as they passed through a tunnel). It could have been my inexperience in using my iPhone 4 to take pictures of a moving target, so to fix it on the fly what I eventually did was just film it and take screen shots, which turned out better than the regular pictures I was taking. My pics would have been a lot better had I been carrying my other camera. In my case, the "inconvenience" of carrying a camera would have been worth it to me, hindsight of course kicking in. How about you, do you think your smartphone is "better" for your needs than your point-and-shoot camera?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

"Let's face it: here at Maximum PC, we're all about competition. It's in our blood. From CPUs to video cards to motherboards to sandwich shops, we live to pit like products (or foodstuffs) against one another. In fact, we recently published an all out showdown between four warring phones and mobile platforms in our quarterly Maximum Tech issue which we're sure you read. That story (as many of our published stories sometimes do) encouraged us to dig a little deeper, and perform a little more testing. The cameras attached to these complex microcomputers are becoming increasingly powerful-many, in fact, are fully capable of taking very sharp and professional looking photos. But are these phones capable of holding their own against more sophisticated equipment? And which phone does it best?"

The above shot, despite being of cute little Android robots, was taken with an iPhone 4. The article it came from, over at Maximum PC pits many of the top phones against each other specifically in the area of camera quality. Thinking of buying a phone and the camera is a big factor? Then take a look and be informed!

Friday, September 3, 2010

"One hotly anticipated feature rolling out in next week's iOS 4.1 update is the new HDR (high dynamic range) option in the iPhone's built-in Camera app. The results are subtly improved and realistic looking photos, as opposed to the fake, over-processed look that is often the hallmark of HDR."

Interesting advantage with the subtle differences when you put photos side by side like in the above image. I don't think my eye for this type of stuff is all that great, but I can notice it. The article also explains exactly what HDR is and how it is accomplished so it is worth the read.

Monday, March 15, 2010

"The iPhone's lack of camera flash makes it a poor performer in low light conditions but developers have been hard at work to make it better."

You can see how well it works from the video above. Not sure how often I'd have a use for it but it is only $0.99 USD in the iTunes Store. There are also several other options in the iTunes store for night vision type usage, varying from free to a couple bucks in case you aren't sold on this particular app.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

"Joby, makers of the various Gorilla accessories - the GorillaPod, the GorillaTorch, GorillaMobile, etc - have just unveiled their first iPhone app: the Gorillacam. The free app provides a number of features to improve the usefulness of the iPhone camera, including a grid for rule-of-thirds shots, making the entire touchscreen a shutter button, burst photo sequences, and much more."

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

"OK, so we've already established that the iPhone camera is capable of some pretty amazing photography, even if you don't use one of the many fantastic photography-related apps available on the Store. One thing I've not seen it used for to date has been action shots; but Oregon-based photographer Jared Souney has been putting his 3GS to good use for just that."

Interesting article on how a pro photographer has been experimenting with his iPhone 3GS to take action shots of BMX competitions for example. This isn't a specific how-to article however, more of a generalized discussion on how he takes the shots, what applications he uses to help him and that sort of thing. Still, I was a able to get a few tips on technique and some new apps to try out from the article so there may be something in it for you too.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

"Apple's iPhone has recently become the most popular camera on Flickr, one of the Internet's most well-regarded photo sharing social media sites. Expressed in "percent of members" terms, the iPhone has lately bested two models of Canon's EOS Digital Rebel, of which the XTi had long been the clear favorite choice of Flickr members."

This actually has been amended so the iPhone is now behind the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, making it the 2nd most popular camera used on Flickr. However among camera phones, the iPhone clearly is the leader as the graph above shows as a percentage of Flickr members. Wonder what the stats are over on You Tube among camera phones?

Monday, July 6, 2009

"Like most people who’ve had an iPhone 3GS in their hands, we’ve been extremely impressed with the video capabilities of this little device. Not only Does it take near-HD video, it has excellent basic editing software and video can be uploaded to YouTube over Wifi or the cell networks. Among other things, it is the most useful video camera in the world today. No wonder the video camera market is shaking in its collective boots. Thank God those iPhones are so expensive, and Apple will only sell 20 million or so of them in 2009. If Apple added cameras to its line of iPods, there would be another 3+million of them hitting the market per month, and the low end of the digital video camera market could be crushed. Uh oh."

The photo above is the one Mike Arrington refers to in his article (from Macrumors). If this is true, it will turn the mini-vidcam market on its ear for some people. There are still going to be some who appreciate the ease of use of the Flip and its many variants, but it's hard to argue that having a camera on your device that shoots good stills and reasonably good video with on-device editing won't at least take a small chunk out of that market.

Monday, May 18, 2009

"We guess this has been a long time in coming - iPods of the next generation could possibly make do with a built-in camera if Apple knows what's good for them. After all, since the device already holds a veritable tome of information, why not make it able to capture images on-the-fly?"

On one hand, I can't think of a good reason to have cameras on an MP3 player, but on the other hand I also live by the axiom that the best camera on the market is the one you carry with you. Seeing as a lot of people are perpetually plugged into their iPhone, this would put a camera within reach at all times.

Not the greatest of ideas, but not a terrible one either. Your thoughts?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

"ClearCam is the latest iPhone app to go live on Cydia, home for the jailbreak apps, and turns your 2MP photos into 4MP ones by stitching 6 normal photos into one super photo. Similar to the manner in which Gigapan created the 1474MP image of the inauguration, Occipital's ClearCam works its magic by creating a composite image using 6 iPhone photos taken in succession."

The quality of the samples is definitely impressive. I won't be jailbreaking my iPhone any time soon, though. The camera is good enough for most of my mobile phone camera picture taking needs. Note, I said good enough and not "good." There is definitely a difference!

If you're like me and like buying the newest shiniest cameras, this update has your name all over it. It's available now in Software Update, or if you just can't wait that long, hit up the link above and grab it the old fashioned way!